Null
by trollnexus
Summary: It's easier to forgive when you have forgotten.


**Title**: Null

**Disclaimer**: Just a broke university student staying broke.

**Pairings**: None. Unless you want Harry/Dudley? You can imagine that if you want.

**Rating**: A very high T

**Warnings**: Attempted murder, mentions of abuse, possible cousincest if you squint hard enough. (Also eye pain from all that squinting.) And alright, it's actually much milder than I'm making it seem, but I'm just covering all the bases here.

**Summary**: It's easier to forgive when you have forgotten.

**Word Count**: 2,150

**Author's Note**: This was written for Round 12 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Season 2.

The task was to write a story incorporating Snow White, so here goes.

.x.x.

_Null_

The bristles are frayed. Harry has had this toothbrush for as long as he can remember. He brushes carefully and quietly, both because it's frayed and because it is better to act like he doesn't exist.

Through the walls, he can hear Dudley demanding a bedtime story. Although the voices are indistinct, Harry already knows what story Aunt Petunia will end up reading.

She reads the story the exact same way every night, because the slightest deviation upsets Diddykins, and we can't have that, now can we?

Because it's always the same, Harry knows all the words by now.

He spits out the toothpaste just before the part where the stepmother consults the mirror.

_Mirror, mirror, on the wall_

_Who's the fairest one of all?_

He mouths the words without any air.

Already, at the age of five, he knows that no one in this house is fair.

.x.x.

Once, when he's about to crawl into his cupboard to sleep, he overhears Uncle Vernon complaining to Aunt Petunia about Dudley's current fixation with _Snow White_.

"It just isn't right, Petunia. A boy his age should be into something…manlier."

"Like what, exactly?"

"I…I don't know. Hell, _Three Little Pigs_? I loved the big bad wolf when I was his age."

"Well, he doesn't. Says it's boring, and you know how he gets when he's bored."

Uncle Vernon chortles. "That's my boy. Always clamouring for what he wants."

"Anyway, I don't see why you're so fussy about it. He told me he likes _Snow White_ because he wants to be the prince."

"The prince, eh? Is my son a ladies' man already?"

Aunt Petunia titters. "Oh, stop it."

"I know. Well, fine. As long as it gets him to sleep. A healthy boy needs a lot of sleep, you know."

Harry closes the cupboard door and shuts their voices out.

The prince, eh?

Well, Harry would rather be Snow White herself. He can't exactly articulate why, but he figures that it's probably more interesting to escape an evil stepmother than to be a boring prince who never changes.

He climbs into his little bed. An unhealthy boy needs sleep, too.

.x.x.

It's a bad day. He doesn't know why Dudley is angry, but he's too busy trying to run away to care.

"Come here, Hairy Pooter! I am Punch and you are Judy! Come here, Hairy Pooter! Let me at you! Face me like a man!" Dudley then cackles, imitating the puppet show he had seen on the beach, and the sound is enough to make Harry swallow rising bile.

He's old enough to know he hates this. His little heart feels like it will burst, but he needs it to keep working, needs it badly, because only his body can save him. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia don't care at all; they would probably chuckle and scold Dudley lightly if they found him beating Harry to a pulp.

Gasping, he trips over a table leg, crashing into the carpet.

He knows what's coming even before he feels the impact of Dudley's fists against his back and shoulders.

What a violent prince, really. He feels sorry for the girl who becomes his Snow White in the future.

.x.x.

Clean this, do that. Make sure you don't miss any spots, or I'll box your ears. Don't get cheeky with me, boy. You're lucky we even bother to feed you.

He knows her words by heart, even better than he knows the fairy tale.

As he polishes the coffee table with a rag, making swift circles, he wonders if he'll be able to make it so clean that he can see his reflection.

Then again, what was the point of seeing his reflection? The sight of his bony, scarred face did not cheer him up, and it wasn't like he could ask his reflection any questions.

_Table, table on the floor_

_What is it they hate me for?_

Yeah, that was a silly thought, and the silence confirms its silliness.

He still cracks a grim smile, though, one he makes sure to hide from his aunt.

After all, why not? It's not like the table can resent him for asking.

.x.x.

The bowl of fruit sits quietly, almost watching Harry as he polishes the coffee table for the umpteenth time.

After a time, he begins to watch it, too.

There is one fruit in particular that seems to shimmer in the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the living room window.

He looks around. Aunt Petunia is making stew in the kitchen, and the others don't seem to be anywhere in sight.

Hand trembling, he picks it up.

It's so red that it should have burned, but instead it feels cool to the touch, a pleasant weight in his hands.

He recalls that the stepmother had poisoned Snow White with this very fruit.

This recollection makes him set it back down.

.x.x.

It becomes a routine. He holds the apple every day. Even when it's eaten by someone else and replaced with another, he picks up the new one and holds it, too.

It's not the specific apple he cares about; it's the idea of one.

Each day, he feels less like Snow White and more like the stepmother. It bothered him at first, but now he's begun to accept it.

The apple is his little rebellion against Aunt Petunia and the polishing, against Dudley and the bullying, against Uncle Vernon and the yelling.

No one knows he does this.

No one needs to know.

.x.x.

Nothing lasts forever.

All it takes is a couple of heavy footsteps behind him, and it's all ruined.

"What are you doing, Snotface?"

Harry should have put the apple down, but Dudley's brash tone makes him clutch onto it even harder.

"I said, what are you doing? That is not yours."

Harry curls his shoulders inwards and ignores him.

Dudley doesn't let that slide. He moves closer.

"Give it here."

"No," Harry rasps finally, backing away. "You don't even like apples."

Dudley comes closer, and Harry backs away further.

"You can't have it, Snotty. It's not yours."

Harry feels the wall against his back, and Dudley is getting so close that he can't escape sideways. He knows he'll have to give up the apple.

He closes his eyes and focuses on the solidity in his hands. Fervently, he wishes it really were a poisoned apple. Then Dudley would get what he deserved for taking it away from Harry.

"Give it before I knock your lights out."

Without waiting for Harry to answer to this threat, Dudley suddenly lunges for the apple and yanks it out of Harry's hands. Dudley was always stronger.

"Urgh," Dudley scowls. "You bruised it. Oh well. Bet it's still good."

With a triumphant smirk wiping out the scowl, Dudley takes a victory bite of his newest acquisition.

Two seconds later, he falls to the floor.

.x.x.

In the chaos that follows, Harry is still not sure why Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia bother to take him to the hospital with them. Maybe in their grief and panic they had forgotten how much they hated him. Or maybe they just didn't want him home alone to set fire to the house.

"Dudley! Oh, Dudley," Aunt Petunia wails, clutching his prone figure in the backseat. Uncle Vernon is sweating in the driver's seat of the car, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white. Harry sits awkwardly in the passenger seat, but thankfully no one really cares about his existence right now.

As the houses and pavements fly by, Harry begins to sweat a little, too. He had done a bad thing. They don't know it now, but when they discover it, he'll probably go to jail like those bad guys in the movies. Or maybe he'll even get killed.

Quietly, he clutches his chest. He's scared and all alone and now a shadow hangs over him.

Dudley's laboured breathing fills the air.

.x.x.

The prognosis is not good.

Not that Harry knows what that word means or anything, but even he can tell, looking at the doctor's grim face, that Dudley is far from okay.

Aunt Petunia has stopped wailing and is now staring blankly at the wall across from her. Uncle Vernon is clutching her hand, and he too is quiet.

It is scary, really, to see their horse and ogre faces so still. Harry had forgotten what their faces looked with when they weren't contorted with anger.

Slowly, Harry walks away from the silence.

They don't even notice that he's left.

.x.x.

Harry stares at Dudley's figure, hooked up to several tubes. No one else is in the room save for other patients, but none of them are in any condition to observe Harry.

He sighs at himself. Some evil villain he turned out to be. He was pretty sure that the stepmother didn't feel an ounce of remorse in the story, so why did he feel like his own chest was constricted, like there was poison in the pit of his own stomach?

The thought of losing Dudley is scary. At least with Dudley, his aunt and uncle had a reason to smile. At least with Dudley, there was some happiness in the house he shared with them, even if none of the happiness was directed towards him.

He does not want to be his aunt and uncle's sole focus.

"Okay," he whispers to himself. "Just like in the story. I will make this better."

He gets as close to Dudley as he can, so close that he can see his pale eyelashes fanning over his plump cheeks.

He knows he's no prince. He's not rich and nobody likes him. But he's the only one who knows what to do, so Dudley will have to settle for this kind of hero instead.

Taking a deep breath, he presses his lips against Dudley's.

It's a good thing no one can see this.

.x.x.

Several years down the line, Harry Potter has gone through many other things. He's discovered he's a wizard, he's made friends, he's seen death and died himself, he's defeated evil, and he's started his own family.

He only has a smattering of memories of the depressing past, because he's had other, more recent depressing memories to occupy his nightmares these days.

Sirius. Dumbledore. Remus and Tonks. Fred. And so many others, all gone with no hope of rising ever again.

So when the doorbell rings and he opens the door to find Dudley on his doorstep, to say he is shocked is an understatement.

He agrees to go to the pub with him anyway, though, because hey. Why not?

As they dig into their fish and chips and swill their beer, they talk aimlessly about family and work and even the British economy, but Harry is waiting, because he knows that his cousin did not show up at his doorstep on a whim.

Finally, as Dudley empties his first pint, he says, "Hey. Do you remember that time when we were teenagers and everything got dark and scary outside?"

Harry thinks. "You mean, when the dementors showed up?"

"Say what now?"

Harry shakes his head. Of course Dudley couldn't have seen them anyway. "When all the bad memories came back, I mean."

"Yeah. That's it. When it got cold and I remembered all the pain for no reason."

Harry shudders. "What about it?"

"Well. That day, I remembered something. Something that I had forgotten. And I've been trying to figure it out, but there was never really any time to talk about it, and then you went away."

"How did you find me, anyway?" Harry interrupts.

"My wife knows you," he says. Before Harry can ask who this wife is, Dudley continues, "Anyway. Do you remember that time I got sick?"

Harry furrows his brows. "When?"

"When I was five or something. Went to the hospital and everything."

Dimly, Harry remembers the wailing and the sterile white walls. "Oh yeah. That was pretty bad."

"Do you…"

"Do I what?"

Dudley pauses and flushes a little. Harry raises an eyebrow, but Dudley abruptly stands up and tosses some money on the counter.

"Forget it, Harry. It's ridiculous even for you." He instead rummages through his wallet for a slip of paper and gives it to Harry. "This is my address. Come visit sometime. My kids would love to meet you."

He leaves without waiting for an answer, and Harry stares at the paper, looking for his own answer.

He really doesn't remember why Dudley went to the hospital. As far as he knows, it was appendicitis, and his aunt had simply overreacted. It was rare to die from it, anyway.

Why Dudley brought it up, Harry doesn't know. It was weird. Then again, Harry's seen weirder.

He pays his own bill and leaves, shrugging to himself.

If his reflection in the pub's window falters for a second, he doesn't even notice.

It's easy to live happily ever after when you can't remember anything.


End file.
